A Return
by Tunsun
Summary: When a gull-grown tiger crashes through the front doors of the manor followed by a demon-like girl who kidnaps Piper, the sisters realize they need some help from someone they have finally learned to let go of.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

"Piper!" the cry rang through the house. Piper Halliwell jumped, sending a spray of basil across the counter. "Damn," she muttered under her breath. The random cries had been coming more frequently, as her sister Phoebe's husband, the half-demon-half-human Cole had just been vanquished – for the last time. They hoped.

Piper turned off the stove, and walked through the dining room to the sunroom, where the cry had come from.

As soon as she walked in the room, she knew that something was wrong. Phoebe was in one of the white wicker chairs, looking like she'd been shot. Piper knew what that looked like; it wasn't an experience she was interested in reliving. It had been terrifying enough the first time Phoebe had been shot.

Paige, their half-sister, had her hand on Phoebe's shoulder, trying to calm her down. Phoebe was still breathing hard as Piper joined them, and placed her hand on Phoebe's forehead. "What happened, sweetie?" she asked.

"She had a premonition." Paige said, looking as if that was the worst thing that had ever happened.

"So? Premonitions are a good thing," Piper put in, stating the obvious. "It's not like you haven't had them before." It was true: Piper, Phoebe, and Paige were witches; they were the _All-Powerful Charmed Ones_. "Well, what did you see?" she asked Phoebe.

"I've never had one like this before," Phoebe began. She looked like she was going to try to sit, but Paige held her down gently. She wasn't in good enough shape to be vertical. "I saw… a girl. She was… I don't know, about thirteen or fourteen. She was down for the count, and Piper… you were holding her and crying. Her eyes were closed at first, but then they opened. They… flamed, and then they went black."

"Wait… you mean there was a flame of defiance, and then they went blank as she died?" asked Paige.

"No. Black. Black as Coal." Phoebe's eyes looked tortured as she said the last word.

"Was she a demon?" asked Piper, her no-nonsense manner kicking in.

"I don't know - she didn't seem demonic. But then I saw her throw an energy ball at me." Phoebe's words hung for a moment. Then, just as Piper was opening her mouth to say something else, a giant crash sounded from the front hall.

"Damn, we just got those doors fixed," Piper muttered as she lead the way through the house. What she expected to see – namely, a huge, lumbering demon (or a young girl, like in Phoebe's vision) was not what had just crashed through the double doors.

It was a tiger. "Oh my god!" Piper screamed as she lifted her hands to freeze the tiger.

"Holy…" Paige's voice stopped as she slipped and lost her balance in her surprise. Piper grabbed Paige's arm to keep her from falling, and Phoebe grabbed her from behind. It was probably, Piper thought, to keep Phoebe from falling as well.

"What the hell is that thing?" Phoebe yelled when she saw what it was over Piper's shoulder. There was nothing wrong with her lungs, Piper thought, relieved. _ But we might try to get those eyes checked out. _

"That's a tiger." She said, looking the frozen creature up and down.

"That's not what I meant…" Phoebe's voice dropped as a girl shimmered into the room.

"Electra!" she screamed when she saw the tiger. When it didn't move, she whirled to face the Charmed Ones, her face scared and angry. "What did you do to her?"

"It's ok, it's just frozen," Piper said, trying to calm the girl.

"That's her, that's the girl form my premonition, oh my god, that's her, what the hell are we going to do, why is she here –" Phoebe's voice didn't stop until she ran out of air.

The girl was in hysterics. Her brown hair was disheveled-looking, long, unwashed and tangled. It spun outwards as she turned her head violently form side to side, looking first at the tiger, then at the Charmed Ones. "No! I don't believe you," she panted, looking scared beyond all comprehension. Producing a small knife from a wrist sheath that had been hidden by her sleeve, she shimmered out, then back in behind Piper. Surprisingly, she didn't put the knife to Piper's throat, like most demons did, just held it as she shimmered out again with Piper.

"Okay," Paige's voice came out small.

"Well…" Phoebe stuttered.

Paige reflected on the humor that she and Phoebe couldn't think of anything to say to that, when they had been at this demon-hunting thing for years. "I… We have to do something, fast. 'Cause with Piper gone, we've got about…" The tiger unfroze. "No time until that thing unfreezes. Run!" Paige grabbed Phoebe, who was slowly recovering her strength, and dragged her around the corner into the sitting room and into the conservatory, where the spirit board was still laid out from the night before. Phoebe had been trying to get a message or premonition of whether Cole was really gone or not. Crouching behind the white wicker behind Phoebe, Paige saw the spirit board's pointer move.

"What the hell are we going to do?" Phoebe asked her, shaking Paige's shoulder until it hurt. All Paige could concentrate on was the pointer. It moved spookily across the spirit board until it spelled out, '_Innocent'_.

_WOAH,_ Paige thought. "Paige!" Phoebe's voice was squeaky. "Come on! What the hell can we do? That's thing's gonna eat us, I don't wanna die!"

"Hey! Stop!" Paige realized just how scared she'd been. "Phoebe, pull yourself together. Concentrate, what do we have?"

"Nothing!" Phoebe's voice rose.

"Okay, we've got to do _something_!" Paige screamed this at her older sister, praying that she would come up with something just like she always did when they were in a tight spot.

"What?" Phoebe's voice was insanely high. Paige had never heard her sister sound so scared, so completely terrified.

"Did you see the spirit board?"

"Yea, 'cause the first thing I think of when a tiger's about to eat me is what the spirit board said!"

"It spelled out '_innocent'."_

Piper was surprised by the warmth of the demon girl's body. Most things that shimmered or blinked or otherwise GOT behind her and grabbed her must have been cold-blooded or something, but the girl felt more human than demon at this point. _How could she not be a demon though?_

Of course Piper had shimmered before, but she'd never seen what looked like small orbs in the shimmer. That definitely wasn't normal.

She felt a cut on her thigh. She looked down, but could barely see anything, because as the shimmer ended, they landed in a dark room. There was enough light coming through the shutters, however, for Piper to see the flash of the knife.

The girl stumbled back from Piper as if she'd been the one stabbed. "Oh…" the sound was soft, but it dropped in the silence like a stone. "I'm so sorry…" the girl said in a voice that made Piper think that she was about to cry. "I promised her that I wouldn't hurt anyone. I promised…" her voice dissolved as she backed into a corner and dropped to the floor, her face disappearing into her hands.

Although it hurt, Piper wasn't too worried about the cut; it wasn't too deep, and she could get Leo to heal it later. They had to let him come down from whitelighter meetings if a charge of his was injured. She put a hand on the girl's shoulder.

She flinched away as if Piper had cursed her to burn at the stake. "Go away," she whispered between sobs. "I was wrong to bring you here. Go home, nothing will stop you." The girl pushed herself to her feet and ran down the hallway.

Piper sighed and tried to freeze her, but the girl didn't freeze. She darted to the left, so fast it didn't look human – or demon, for that matter. She seemed to float on the dirty carpet. Piper followed her, looking inside every door that stood open before walking by. She turned the corner into another hallway lined with doors. Almost without noticing, she began to count the doors: there were 14, and all but one, the last one, were closed. As she looked inside the last door, Piper saw the demon-girl on the bed. She walked in.

The room looked like it had been a good-and-evil battle ground for centuries. There were energy ball scorch marks mixed with lingering orbs, lightening and fireball scorches, and tons of posters. On one wall, the biggest poster read, "I will not rest until the good is extinguished" and on the opposite, "I will not rest until the demon is vanquished." Piper's breath caught in her throat as she read that last part. Her sister Prue, had said that, years ago before her death.

But there was no time to cry right now. The demon-girl had that covered, and Piper saw blood on her side. She walked over to the bed, sat down on the edge, and reached out a hand to briefly touch the girl's shoulder.

This time the girl stayed, not even flinching as Piper's hand traveled down her side. She found a huge rip in the side of the girl's shirt, which might have once been white, but was now a dusty brown.

"Go." The girl's voice resonated in the silence. Piper considered doing as she said, but only for a moment.

"No," she answered, surprising herself. "You need help. Where do you keep the disinfectant?"

"Bathroom. Down the hall, take a left, and it's the first door on the left. Top cupboard. Put some on your leg." She said this like an order, and something told Piper that she shouldn't argue with this girl's orders.

She followed the directions and found the disinfectant. Next to it, she found a roll of wrap bandage. She left them on the counter, but stopped before re-entering the girl's room.

Turning back around, Piper walked back to the bathroom, starting the water running in the tub. As an afterthought, she put some disinfectant on her thigh – it was beginning to bother her.

Now, she walked back to the girl's room. Without giving her a chance to protest, Piper jumped on the bed, wrapped her arms around the girl's middle, and dragged her off of it.

The demon-girl started to kick in protest, and Piper grabbed a better hold of her around the thigh. Her fighting seemed too weak for the strength Piper could feel, which scared her. _She must have lost too much blood. _ "Let go of me!" the girl grunted, but Piper didn't let go. She half-dragged her all the way down the long hallway and into the bathroom.

She plopped the girl into the tub, already half-full with lukewarm water that was slowly becoming colder because the new water being pumped in was cold. Piper shut it off. "What the hell…" the girl swore, again and again, as she found herself about half-submerged in the water. She began thrashing around as she tried to stand.

Piper grabbed the scissors that were lying on the counter. As she moved and the demon-girl saw them, she froze. "Put those down…" she said, a warning tone in her voice.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Piper tried to reassure her. "I promise. But then, what's a promise to a demon?" she added, mostly to herself.

But the girl heard. She looked straight at Piper and said, in a voice that cracked, "I'm not a demon. I don't know what I am."

The word dropped in the silence. "_Innocent?_" Phoebe asked. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure, Phoebe." Paige said, hoping that she sounded more sure than she felt. "So who do you think is the innocent?"

"Does it really matter? That thing's still gonna eat us," Phoebe said.

"We might need to know!" Paige protested.

The tiger walked around the corner. "Okay, any bright ideas now?" Phoebe asked.

The pointer moved again on the spirit board. It spelled '_Help.'_

"Ok, did you…"

"Yeah," Phoebe answered even before Paige finished asking.

"Who are you?" Paige asked the spirit board, louder than they'd been talking.

"Not so loud…"

"It already knows where we are!" Paige interrupted.

They both held still as '_Demon knows too_,' was spelled out on the spirit board.

"Wait… how did it answer you if… is the tiger doing that?"

The tiger nodded its huge head.

"Okay…" Phoebe started to say something, then stopped and said. "So who's this demon?"

'_Come out'_ said the tiger/spirit board. Tentatively, they did. "How do we know it's not going to eat us?" Phoebe whispered.

"It wouldn't need us to walk out from behind the couch if it was," said Paige. "I mean, seriously. White wicker against a tiger… we were dead anyway."

They stood there together, completely at the mercy of the creature.

It walked towards them. They both tensed, and Paige felt fear flow from Phoebe. The tiger kept walking until it brushed up against Paige's hand.

Instantly, she felt a jolt. And suddenly, she could feel the tiger's thoughts.

_ I need you to get your sister to trust me, or else I won't be able to talk to her._ The voice was unspoken.

"How do you know that we're sisters?"

Phoebe jumped. _Of course,_ Paige thought. _She didn't hear the tiger's question…_

_ I know the way sisters move together. Get her to trust me, so I can talk to you both._

"Phoebe, it's fine. It's a good tiger," said Paige.

Phoebe reached out slowly, her fingertips just brushing the tiger's sides. Suddenly she jolted, as if she was having a premonition… except that she wasn't. Paige felt the tiger's thoughts reach out to her, and felt the connection.

_Come on. There's a demon. He's after me and my sisters, and now he'll be after you._

"And whose fault is that?"

"Phoebe…" Paige warned.

"What, fair question," Phoebe replied.

_It's my fault. I lead him to you, but only because, with you other sister, you three would have been strong enough to defeat him. But know that Phire took you sister…_

"Wait… Fire?" asked Paige.

_No. Phire. With a Ph. _It paused before going on. _My sister._

"Your sister's the one who took Piper away?"

_Yes. She must have frozen me so I don't remember anything, but I can always tell when my sister has been in the room._

"Ok, just one more thing," said Paige. "Why did she yell 'Electra' when she saw you?"

_That's my name,_ said Electra. _At least, it was my name. Now… I hope that you've got a plan. My sister fights hard, and she's got you two pegged as the people who hurt me. Add that to the fact that there's a demon on your tail, and we've got problems. _

"Well, are there any other surprises you'd like to let us know _before_ we get killed?"

"Please excuse my sister, she's a little out of her mind," Paige made the excuse. "She's been a little out of it since we vanquished her husband."

That made Electra turn her head, with an extremely human look of surprise on her face. _Um… ok, I don't want to know…_

"Yeah, count your blessings, Electra," Phoebe told the tiger, surprised at how easily the name rolled off her tongue. "You didn't have to live it."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"What do you mean, you have no idea?" asked Piper. "You've got to have some idea of who… or what you are."

"Yeah?" that girl looked up reproachfully, meeting Piper's eyes without flinching. "Put the scissors down."

"No!" Piper explained. "You're hurt. I've got to cut your shirt, so that when you take it off to wash the blood off of your side, then it won't pull at the scabs and make you bleed more." She returned the glare. "Trust me. I won't hurt you."

The girl curled her body at first, trying to shield her side from Piper, but winced and couldn't hold the position. She relaxed, finally giving into Piper's hands, which were at her side the moment she lowered her guard.

Piper crouched by the side of the tub, carefully feeling the girl's side for the place where the blood stains stopped. She found it, nearly at the bottom of the girl's shirt on the left side, and made a horizontal cut to the other side of the girl's stomach. She saw the slash mark in the girl's skin, and swerved the scissors downward, following the cut, while swallowing the bile that rose in her throat. She stopped when she saw the end of the break in the skin. Then, she cut a mostly vertical cut up the left seam of the girl's shirt, moving it backwards as she saw the scratch move gradually towards the back of her body.

"How did you even get this?" she asked, trying to keep herself busy as she cut away parts of the girl's shirt.

"My sister." She responded, as if that answered every unasked question in Piper's mind. Now, she was cutting a diagonal line connecting the ends of the two other cuts, and a triangular piece of the girl's shirt fell away, only being held my a few strands that were stuck to the girl's skin by the sticky, drying blood.

"Could you be a little bit more vague?" Piper challenged the girl. "What's your name? You have to have a name, and you at least owe me that."

"I owe you nothing… but my name's Phire."

"What do you mean? I'm saving your life, or at least your health. Walking around with that scratch on your side can't possibly be good for you." The girl, Phire, didn't respond. "So, Fire, right?"

The girl met Piper's eyes. Eyes that seemed to have already seen to much of the world. Piper's heart gave an extra thump to the lack of freedom the girl must have had growing up. "No. Not Fire. Phire. With a Ph." Somehow the girl had known that Piper had meant it like the element. That kind of creeped Piper out, but she had learned by now, after five years of demon hunting, to just accept those things. She pulled gently at the triangle of the shirt, carefully pulling at it while still trying not to make it bleed more. "Ok, so Phire," she tried again. "How did you get this?"

"I told you. My sister."

"That doesn't help much. What did she do? Why did she try to kill you? What did you do to make her want to kill you?"

"She didn't try to kill me. She's a tiger-"

"She's a – what?" Piper asked. She thought for a moment, and decided to accept it. They'd dealt with weirder things.

Actually, she wasn't totally sure of that. Innocents who were demonic and had tigers for sisters – that was odd, even by their standards. "Well, I guess that explains the tiger in our front hall."

Phire sighed. "Yes." She looked down. "Electra. She didn't realize that she was attacking me until she was on top of me, and had given me that"- she pointed to her side - "and that." This time, she pointed to her right shoulder. Piper hadn't even noticed that it was bloody

… … … …

Phoebe shared a secret glance with Paige. She hadn't actually had to live through the last time Cole was vanquished - he and Paige had been in a parallel world when that had happened. But she'd lived through vanquishing Cole about a dozen times before that, each time thinking that he was truly gone – no such luck.

She was just about to ask Electra something else about the demon when there was another loud crash in the front hall. She and Paige both ran for it, this time expecting to see Electra' sister, but were again proven wrong. A demon stood there, clothed in the usual black suit, with an energy ball. It was so cliché. He fired the energy ball at Phoebe, who levitated out of the way and tried to kick him – but he shimmered out before she hit him, and Phoebe crashed into the already broken glass of the front doors.

"Phoebe!" Phoebe heard Paige scream. She knew that it was unnerving for her to see her sister on the ground with broken glass.

"I'm ok," Phoebe forced herself to get up, despite the chunk of glass stuck into her right leg. Leo could heal it later.

But Paige had no time to go across the front hall to her sister's side, because at that moment, the demon decided to shimmer back in, and sent Paige flying across the room – and the sitting room - to crash into the wall – the same wall that had killed Prue, their older sister.

Paige screamed. Phoebe had never heard her sister scream like that. Panicked, she raised her voice and screamed Leo's name at the same time that Paige did.

Electra had been making her way across the front hall, slipping past the demon the way that only a tiger could. She reached Phoebe's side and ordered her, _Pull it out._ Phoebe did. To her amazement, Electra held up her paws and healed her, just like Leo would have done.

"Get Paige!" she whispered back at her, then stood up and faced the demon. "Leo? Where the hell are you?" she asked the ceiling. "What do you want?' she asked more boldly to the demon, trying to buy some time while Leo orbed down.

Her husband-in-law picked that moment to orb in. "What?" he asked, annoyed. He must have been helping another charge with something pretty important. He ducked an energy ball from the demon.

Paige emerged from the sunroom with Electra. "Wood," she said, and a piece of the wood from the wall she'd broken down orbed into her hand, and then into the demon when she threw it at him.

He ducked under the piece of wood, and took out a pouch that must have contained some sort of powder. He threw a pinch of it at Paige.

She orbed, but not fast enough. "Paige!" Phoebe screamed, as Paige re-orbed in by her side.

But it didn't look like Paige anymore. Her form was melting, changing. Phoebe heard the crunch of her bones grinding against each other as Paige reformed into the shape of a snow leopard.

"What the hell…" Phoebe stopped talking and levitated into the air to escape another pinch of the demon's powder. Just at that moment Electra leaped at him, and knocked him to the ground.

The powder only touched the bottom of her leg, which was unfortunately exposed by Phoebe's Capris. She suddenly felt that her leg wasn't a leg anymore: it felt more like a paw. She caught a glimpse of black fur on the back of her hand as she lifted it to levitate higher, all the way up into the ceiling, then suddenly realized that her joint didn't move that way anymore.

Leo orbed out again, this time reappearing above the demon. He fell onto him, trying to bring him down. Whitelighters are pacifists, so he couldn't exactly kill the guy, but he could knock him out.

At least, he could try.

Phoebe tried to ignore the sickening movement of organs inside of her body. She tried to ignore that her bones were changing shape, becoming shorter, and when her knees moved upward, becoming hidden in the black fur that was growing on her body. She tried to ignore the fact that she was quickly gaining muscles in places where there hadn't been muscles before, and loosing her humanity. She tried to ignore the killer instinct that came with the changes. She tried, but couldn't. She was on top. She was the supreme ruler, as she stood above the heads of even the tallest of demons. She looked down, and what she saw was that a tigress and a snow leopard had invaded her territory, and that she had to defend it. Oh, she saw the demon too, but he was in a human form, and humans could be dealt with swiftly and easily. She felt strong, powerful like she had never been before.

_Phoebe!_ the cry had come from the tigress. _Paige! _

And somehow, Phoebe understood. Phoebe heard, even beneath the black panther's instincts, what was happening. And suddenly, she was in control again.

_ Okay, what the hell happened?_

_ That's a good question, Phoebe. Let's ask the demon. Paige_ was getting to her paws. Phoebe sank down beside her, her paws touching the ground.

"That's right, regain your humanity," the demon sneered. "You will soon be powerless, as the killer instincts leave, and render you useless."

_Oh, yeah?_Phoebe thought to the demon. _We've been getting on just fine with our human instincts and brains. Why not this time? We'll just vanquish you the same way we vanquish all demons: Power of three spell._

"I count two." The demon said cheekily.

_He's got us there,_ said Paige.

"Besides," the demon said, the evil smile never leaving his face, "You can't exactly chant like that, can you?"

Phoebe tried to say, "Wanna Bet?" out loud, but it came out as some sort of growl.

"Keep trying," the demon sneered.

_I don't get it, _Phoebe turned her head to Paige.

_We don't have vocal cords anymore… at least, not human ones. Paige_ answered.

Electra looked down. _It's my fault, _she thought-whispered. _If I hadn't healed you two, you wouldn't be like this. He doesn't take injured people. _

_ Honey, it's not your fault… _Phoebe stopped. Because it kind of was Electra's fault.

… … … …

Piper sighed. "Ok, let me get a towel," she said.

"Middle shelf." Phire said shortly.

Piper opened the cabinet, and took out a towel from the top of the pile. As an afterthought, she took out another one. "I'm not going to lie to you," she warned Phire. "This is going to hurt. And it'll probably start bleeding again." She pulled, and the rest of the shirt pulled way. She winced when she saw the claw marks, but swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat again. Then, she dabbed at Phire's side with the smaller towel. She was trying to be gentle: the blood was just not coming off of Phire's side. At last, she gave up on trying to be gentle and just got the blood off.

She'd been right: it did start bleeding again, but it wasn't as bad as she'd imagined. Piper held the washcloth to Phire's side until the bleeding stopped, then took out the scissors again.

Phire flinched. "Oh, come on! If I wanted to hurt you, don't you think I would have done that by now?" Phire relaxed.

"Sorry… force of habit, I guess. My sister always said to never let anyone get close to you. They'll let you down."

"That's not always true," Piper argued. "Your sisters don't let you down."

"Maybe yours don't." Phire gasped as more blood came out, this time out of her shoulder as Piper tore away the shirt, this time forgetting to be gentle.

"Sorry, sorry," Piper tried to regain Phire's confidence, if she'd ever had it. "Maybe your sisters weren't really your sisters," she added. "It's often that way with demon families."

"I told you, I'm not a demon!" Phire said, louder than she had to.

"Then why can you shimmer?" Piper's voice was more accusatory than she'd intentioned, so she added, "And what's with the good-and-evil battleground in your bedroom?"

Phire smiled. A sad smile. "You noticed," she said. She slowly stirred the blood and dirt into the water with her finger. She didn't say anything else.

_Fine,_ Piper thought, a bit grudgingly. "Let's see if we can get your shirt off," she said. This time Phire didn't resist her as she peeled it off. She lay there, still half-submerged in bathwater, on her right side, but propped up on her elbow to keep her shoulder above the water.

Piper gently took the small towel from the toilet seat where she'd placed it, and used it to wipe the worst of the blood off of Phire's shoulder, then moved down to her side. She cleaned it off, then said, "Come on. Let's get you dried off."

Piper helped her to her feet, then used the other, bigger towel that she'd grabbed to wrap her up.

Phire sat down on the toilet seat. "Let me see," Piper commanded. Phire gingerly opened the towel, and sat up straighter. Feeling a bit awkward touching Phire's skin, and the area around the scratches, Piper checked them once again for already-visible infections. She then reached for the disinfectant, which she'd left on the counter, and put some on the washcloth and ran it down Phire's side, along all the scratches. She then moved up to Phire's shoulder.

Phire hissed, catlike, as the disinfectant touched her. Piper could tell that Phire was controlling herself as much as she could to not kill her. She appreciated it.

Piper stood up. She stretched, her hand brushing the low ceiling. Turning, she reached up to the top of the cabinet, this time grabbing the roll of wrap bandage. She moved back towards Phire, and ignored her hisses of defiance as she unwrapped it. "Stop it," she said. "It has to be covered, or else it'll bleed again."

"Don't… hurt me," said Phire. "I can't take it anymore."

"I won't." She wondered why the girl was still so scared of her – hadn't she proven herself to be one of the good guys? Something about Phire confused her. She weren't quite demonic, but there was definitely a dark side to her.

Engrossed in these thoughts, she started to wrap. She started at Phire's waist, working her way upwards. When the claw marks oozed blood again from the slight pressure she was putting of them, she gently wiped it off with the cloth, which was slowly getting dyed red beyond repair.

Phire winced again, hissing from the pain of dried blood being peeled off of her tender skin. Piper refused to get intimidated, and kept wrapping Phire's torso, completely covering the scratches by running the wrap bandage all the way around Phire's stomach. She worked her way all the way up Phire's side, covering her all the way to the top of the middle scratch, which meant that she had to wrap Phire's breasts as well. Phire screwed her eyes shut during this whole thing, obviously trying to get herself to not kill Piper, who finished Phire's bandaging by bringing the wrap over Phire's right shoulder, crossing it over her back, around her arm, then back to her left shoulder. She wrapped Phire's upper arm, too, and it covered the scratch completely.

"Ok," she said. Phire's eyes opened as Piper tied the leftover bandage, then snipped the end. "Let's get you back to the manor, so that you can tell us about that demon and fill my sisters in about Electra."

… … … …

"You have no idea how much I am going to enjoy this," the demon sneered.

_What the hell is he talking about?_ asked Phoebe.

_What he's done to all of us,_ said Electra.

_Us? What do you mean, us? Are there more like you?_ Paige almost screamed at Electra. She felt her entire snow leopard's body tense… and liked the strength that she felt in her muscle.

_Yes. My other sisters and I._ Electra said this to Paige and Phoebe, but as she did, she turned her huge, tiger head toward the demon. To him, she thought, _You can't take us. We will stand strong._

"Does someone want to tell me what's going on?" asked Leo out loud.

_ We're fine, Leo… well, except for the obvious problem._ Paige tried to reassure him, but Leo didn't seem to hear her. To Electra, she thought, _Do I need to touch him for him to hear me, like you did for us?_

_ Yup._

"Certainly." Sneered the demon, answering Leo's question. "Your witches are as good as dead. Don't try to find them, for the sake of your own life." The demon laughed in Leo's face as he stood facing him. He used his apparent telekinetic powers to hurl the vase that stood on the table in the parlor at the back of Leo's head. Leo crumpled up among the pieces of smashed glass. "Now," said the demon, "Let's go home. You'll learn to love it – not that you'll have a choice."

He spread his cape – what was _with_ that tacky cape anyway, Paige thought – and seemed to grow. Paige shrunk back, a little bit scared, and stepped closer to Phoebe. Electra was on her other side, with a look of pure defiance in her eyes. Paige felt her body tense up, ready for battle, and Electra took a step forward.

But then she stumbled backwards. Paige fell with her, landing mostly on top of Phoebe's black-furred body as the room spun.

And just like that, they weren't in the manor anymore.

… … … …

"Can you shimmer that far?" Piper asked.

"Ok, I'm not a demon, but I am 14 years old. I think that I can ormmer that far." Phire's response was a bit sharp. "I mean, I got you here, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but you were acting on adrenalin… did you say ormmer?" asked Piper.

"It's my sister's way of describing my weird shimmers… they have what look like orbs or something in them."

"Yeah, I noticed…" Piper hesitated before asking her next question. "Do you know why your shimmers are so… weird?"

"I have an idea," Phire answered, but before Piper could ask what she meant by that, she grabbed Piper's hands and ormmered out.

Piper caught her breath as they landed in the front hall. She stopped, dead, as she saw the only sight that made her scared… She saw Leo, knocked out on the floor, surrounded by broken glass. And there was no sign of her sisters.


End file.
